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Using studies on contemporary Maya farming techniques and important new archaeological research, the authors show that the ancient Maya were able to support, sustainably, a vast population by farming the forest—thus refuting the common notion that Maya civilization devolved due to overpopulation and famine.
A wide-ranging study that draws on local and regional research findings to provide a popular portrait of the biodiverse and resilient Chiquibul. Belize’s Chiquibul Forest is one of the largest remaining expanses of tropical moist forest in Central America. It forms part of what is popularly known as the Maya Forest. Battered by hurricanes over millions of years, occupied by the Maya for thousands of years, and logged for hundreds of years, this ecosystem has demonstrated its remarkable ecological resilience through its continued existence into the twenty-first century. Despite its history of disturbance, or maybe in part because of it, the Maya Forest is ranked as an important regional biodiversity hot spot and provides some of the last regional habitats for endangered species such as the jaguar, the scarlet macaw, Baird’s tapir, and Morelet’s crocodile. A Natural History of Belize presents for the first time a detailed portrait of the habitats, biodiversity, and ecology of the Maya Forest, and Belize more broadly, in a format accessible to a popular audience. It is based in part on the research findings of scientists studying at Las Cuevas Research Station in the Chiquibul Forest. The book is unique in demystifying many of the big scientific debates related to rainforests. These include “Why are tropical forests so diverse?”; “How do flora and fauna evolve?”; and “How do species interact?” By focusing on the ecotourism paradise of Belize, this book illustrates how science has solved some of the riddles that once perplexed the likes of Charles Darwin, and also shows how it can assist us in managing our planet and forest resources wisely in the future.
The Maya Tropical Forest, which occupies the lowlands of southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, is the closest rainforest to the United States and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Western Hemisphere. It has been home to the Maya peoples for nearly four millennia, starting around 1800 BC. Ancient cities in the rainforest such as Palenque, Yaxchilan, Tikal, and Caracol draw thousands of tourists and scholars seeking to learn more about the prehistoric Maya. Their contemporary descendants, the modern Maya, utilize the forest's natural resources in village life and international trade, while striving to protect their homeland from deforestation and environmental degradation. Writing for both visitors and conservationists, James Nations tells the fascinating story of how ancient and modern Maya peoples have used and guarded the rich natural resources of the Maya Tropical Forest. He opens with a natural history that profiles the forest's significant animals and plants. Nations then describes the Maya peoples, biological preserves, and major archaeological sites in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of conservation work in the Maya Tropical Forest, Nations tells first-hand stories of the creation of national parks and other protected areas to safeguard the region's natural resources and archaeological heritage. He concludes with an expert assessment of the forest's future in which he calls for expanded archaeological tourism to create an ecologically sustainable economic base for the region.
Throughout the world people are concerned about the demise of tropical forests and their wildlife. Hunting by forest-dwelling people has a dramatic effect on wildlife in many tropical forests, frequently driving species to local extinction, with devastating implications for other species and the health of the forests themselves. But wildlife is an important source of protein and cash for rural peoples. Can hunting be managed to conserve biological communities while meeting human needs? Are hunting rates as practiced by tropical forest peoples sustainable? If not, what are the biological, social, and cultural implications of this failure? Answering these questions is ever more important as national and international agencies seek to integrate the development of local peoples with the conservation of tropical forest systems and species. This book presents a wide array of studies that examine the sustainability of hunting as practiced by rural peoples. Comprising work by both biological and social scientists, Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests provides a balanced viewpoint on the ecological and human aspects of this hunting. The first section examines the effects of hunting on wildlife in tropical forests throughout the world. The next section looks at the importance of hunting to local communities. The third section looks at institutional challenges of resource management, while the fourth draws on economic perspectives to understand both hunting and sustainability. A final section provides synthesis and summary of the factors that influence sustainability and the implications for management. Drawing on examples from Ecuador to Congo-Zaire to Sulawesi, Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests will be a valuable resource to policymakers, conservation organizations, and students and scholars of biology, ecology, and anthropology.
Winner of the Society for Economic Botany's Mary W. Klinger Book Award. Cultural Forests of the Amazon is a comprehensive and diverse account of how indigenous people transformed landscapes and managed resources in the most extensive region of tropical forests in the world. Until recently, most scholars and scientists, as well as the general public, thought indigenous people had a minimal impact on Amazon forests, once considered to be total wildernesses. William Balée’s research, conducted over a span of three decades, shows a more complicated truth. In Cultural Forests of the Amazon, he argues that indigenous people, past and present, have time and time again profoundly transformed nature into culture. Moreover, they have done so using their traditional knowledge and technology developed over thousands of years. Balée demonstrates the inestimable value of indigenous knowledge in providing guideposts for a potentially less destructive future for environments and biota in the Amazon. He shows that we can no longer think about species and landscape diversity in any tropical forest without taking into account the intricacies of human history and the impact of all forms of knowledge and technology. Balée describes the development of his historical ecology approach in Amazonia, along with important material on little-known forest dwellers and their habitats, current thinking in Amazonian historical ecology, and a narrative of his own dialogue with the Amazon and its people.
DIVCollection of essays offers a multi-layered understanding of the social complexities of rainforest practice and representation,./div
Before massive deforestation began in the 1960s, the Lacandón jungle, which lies on the border of Mexico and Guatemala, was part of the largest tropical rain forest north of the Amazon. The destruction of the Lacandón occurred with little attention from the international press—until January 1, 1994, when a group of armed Maya rebels led by a charismatic spokesperson who called himself Subcomandante Marcos emerged from jungle communities and briefly occupied several towns in the Mexican state of Chiapas. These rebels, known as the Zapatista National Liberation Army, became front-page news around the globe, and they used their notoriety to issue rhetorically powerful communiqués that denounced political corruption, the Mexican government’s treatment of indigenous peoples, and the negative impact of globalization. As Brian Gollnick reveals, the Zapatista communiqués had deeper roots in the Mayan rain forest than Westerners realized—and he points out that the very idea of the jungle is also deeply rooted, though in different ways, in the Western imagination. Gollnick draws on theoretical innovations offered by subaltern studies to discover “oral traces” left by indigenous inhabitants in dominant cultural productions. He explores both how the jungle region and its inhabitants have been represented in literary writings from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present and how the indigenous people have represented themselves in such works, including post-colonial and anti-colonial narratives, poetry, video, and photography. His goal is to show how popular and elite cultures have interacted in creating depictions of life in the rain forest and to offer new critical vocabularies for analyzing forms of cross-cultural expression.
"Green Wars challenges international conservation efforts, revealing through in-depth case studies how "saving" the Maya Forest facilitates racialized dispossession. Megan Ybarra brings Guatemala's 36-year civil war into the perspective of a longer history of 200 years of settler colonialism to show how conservation works to make Q'eqchi's into immigrants on their own territory. Even as the post-war state calls on them to claim rights as individual citizens, Q'eqchi's seek survival as a people. Her analysis reveals that Q'eqchi's both appeal to the nation-state and engage in relationships of mutual recognition with other Indigenous peoples -- and the land itself -- in their calls for a material decolonization."--Provided by publisher.
What can we learn from the people of the Maya Lowlands? Integrating history, biodiversity, ethnobotany, geology, ecology, archaeology, anthropology, and other disciplines, The Lowland Maya Area is a valuable guide to the fascinating relationship between man and his environment in the Yucatán peninsula. This book covers virtually every aspect of the biology and ecology of the Maya Lowlands and the many ways that human beings have interacted with their surroundings in that area for the last three thousand years. You'll learn about newly discovered archaeological evidence of wetland use; the domestication and use of cacao and henequen plants; a biodiversity assessment of a select group of plants, animals, and microorganisms; the area's forgotten cotton, indigo, and wax industries; the ecological history of the Yucatán Peninsula; and much more. This comprehensive book will open your eyes to all that we can learn from the Maya people, who continue to live on their native lands, integrating modern life with their old ways and teaching valuable lessons about human dependence on and management of environmental resources. The Lowland Maya Area explores: the impact of hurricanes and fire on local environments historic and modern Maya concepts of forests the geologic history of the Yucatán challenges to preserving Maya architecture newly-discovered evidence of fertilizer use among the ancient Maya cooperation between locals and researchers that fosters greater knowledge on both sides recommendations to help safeguard the future The Lowland Maya Area is an ideal single source for reliable information on the many ecological and social issues of this dynamic area. Providing you with the results of the most recent research into many diverse fields, including traditional ecological knowledge, the difficult transition to capitalism, agave production, and the diversity of insect species, this book will be a valuable addition to your collection. As the editors of The Lowland Maya Area say in their concluding chapter: “If we are to gain global perspective from the changing Maya world, it is that understanding space and time is absolutely critical to human persistence.” Understanding how the Maya have interacted with their environment for thousands of years while maintaining biodiversity will help us understand how we too can work for sustainable development in our own environments.
In Maya Roads, McConahay draws upon her three decades of traveling and living in Central America's remote landscapes to create a fascinating chronicle of the people, politics, archaeology, and species of the Central American rainforest, the cradle of Maya civilization. Captivated by the magnificence and mystery of the jungle, the author brings to life the intense beauty, the fantastic locales, the ancient ruins, and the horrific violence. She witnesses archaeological discoveries, the transformation of the Lacandon people, the Zapatista indigenous uprising in Mexico, increased drug trafficking, and assists in the uncovering of a war crime. Over the decades, McConahay has witnessed great changes in the region, and this is a unique tale of a woman's adventure and the adaptation and resolve of a people.